Showing events on this day in years past that shaped history... just, not our history.

Monday, February 9, 2015

April 28, 1192 – Conrad’s Would-be Assassin Names Richard

Conrad of Montferrat, the newly elected King of Jerusalem
and not even yet crowned, was attacked in midday as he walked the streets of
Tyre with his bodyguard, heading home to have lunch with his wife. The
attackers were Assassins (the Hashshashin—“outcasts”),
specially trained suicide-soldiers of the order founded by Hassan-I Sabbah
during the chaotic days of the early Crusades. They were trained in a mountain
fortress in Iran, indoctrinated through drugs and propaganda to give their
lives in order to receive Paradise in the afterlife.

One of the crusaders guarding Conrad proved quick enough to
throw his own body in front of the king, taking a blow from a knife meant for
Conrad’s side to his chest. Another blade struck Conrad’s back, giving him a
scar that would last the rest of his life. One assassin was killed, and the
other captured and tortured to death, but not before he gave the name of his
hirer: Richard of England.

Richard, nicknamed “the Lionhearted” not only for his
bravery but also his bravado during the campaign against Castillon-sur-Agen, continued
his brashness through the Third Crusade. After the fall of Jerusalem to the
forces of Saladin, the new King Richard and his counterpart Phillip II of
France launched forces funded by the Saladin Tithe, a special tax of 10% levied
on nearly everyone with money to their names. While in Sicily in 1190, locals
in Messina balked at their treatment by the visiting crusaders. Richard
responded by besieging, conquering, and looting Messina before moving on. On
the journey to Acre, a storm separated the ship with his fiancé, Berengaria of
Navarre, from the rest of the fleet and drove it to the shores of Cyprus.
Richard conquered Cyprus from the Byzantines to win her back. At last the
crusaders marched on Acre, and Richard fought despite suffering scurvy,
legendarily firing crossbows while soldiers carried him on a stretcher.

Conrad of Montferrat, who had commanded the defense of Tyre
against Saladin’s army in the previous years, negotiated the surrender of Acre.
He carried a great deal of notoriety with locals and was called “the greatest
devil of all the Franks.” During the siege of Tyre, his own aged father,
William IV of Montferrat, was brought forward as a prisoner. Saladin promised
to release him and shower Conrad with riches if he gave up the city. Conrad
replied by aiming his own crossbow at William and saying, “He has lived long already.”
Saladin then himself released William, saying that Conrad was “an unbeliever
and very cruel.”

Yet Conrad was also handsome and popular among the
crusaders. The Third Crusade proved militarily successful, even though Duke
Leopold V of Austria marched away after Richard tossed his standard down,
saying that it wasn’t worthy of being hung beside those of kings like himself
and Phillip II. Phillip II left in 1191 to return to France, leaving his
treasure and valuable prisoners with Conrad. Eventually Conrad had to turn the
prisoners over to Richard as the king was now sole leader of the crusade. Rather
than use them for leverage against Saladin, Richard had them all killed.At last
Jerusalem was taken back from Saladin, an election was held on who would be the
new king. Richard offered up his own name, but the barons unanimously voted for
Conrad.

Richard left immediately and even sold Cyprus, apparently
done with the Holy Land if he could not be its king. On his journey toward
England, a storm drove his ship to Corfu, held by the Byzantines, who were
still upset over losing Cyprus. He sneaked away in a smaller ship, which
wrecked and forced him to travel over land disguised as a Knight Templar. Near
Vienna in 1192, he was recognized by a fellow crusader, captured, and brought
to Duke Leopold. As a vassal of Emperor Henry VI, he was to turn over the
prized prisoner, but Leopold sent him back to his cousin, Conrad, King of
Jerusalem, to undergo trial for attempted regicide. Pope Celestine III was put
in a terrible position since imprisoning a crusader was an excommunicable
offense, but so was masterminding such an attack. The matter was resolved when
Richard drowned during a storm at sea (suspiciously, it took no other lives).

Although Richard’s death quieted the east, it sent England
into civil war. His younger brother John had ousted Richard’s chancellor,
William Longchamp, to effectively rule in 1191. He proved very unpopular, and,
upon news of Richard’s death, barons in Normandy upheld five-year-old Arthur,
son of Richard and John’s brother Geoffrey, as rightful king. John retreated to
his holdings in Ireland and re-invaded with aid from Phillip II through the supporting
Welsh marcher lords. William the Lion, King of Scotland, agreed to join the
alliance in exchange for an earldom in the northern counties. England became war-torn.

After years of campaign and routinely
putting down rebellions in his own lands, John won back England only to lose
his lands on the continent to France as Philip seized them along with the boy
Arthur, whom he kept at court. Deeply indebted and fearful to raise taxes any
further, John became a vassal to Philip, who could at any time reject John and
establish Arthur. Although John held rule over England, Ireland, and Wales, it
was tenuous at best, and he needed French authority to keep down rebellious
barons. While John’s son Henry III ruled quietly under France and his grandson
Edward I crusaded or warred with Scots and Welsh, later generations would carry
out a Hundred Years Rebellion that would eventually wrest England out from
under French influence.

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In reality, the assassins’ blades struck home,
and Conrad of Montferrat died soon after. Richard was held for a ransom of
65,000 pounds of silver, which was raised by his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Upon arriving back in England, Richard made peace with John and named him heir.
During his own reign, John would lose his holdings on the continent to France
and fight repeated wars with the barons, bringing about the signing of the Magna Carta.